UK CIOs have IT security experts in their sights

If you can’t find a job in your current profession, you might want to consider becoming an IT security expert, as those will be in high demand for the rest of the year.

Those are the results of a new report from Robert Half Technology, which says that almost half (47 per cent) of UK’s CIOs plan on boosting their IT security personnel this year.

Almost half (45 per cent) say they’ll boost their cloud security this year, and 29 per cent want to up their mobile security game this year.

Adoption of more flexible working patterns is driving widespread uptake of mobile technologies, creating potential security risks, the company says, as businesses seek to allow employees to access corporate systems and data from any location.

On-site security is another major concern. The majority (78 per cent) of CIOs are concerned about the potential security threats involved in running an open plan office, with the biggest threat (cited by 49 per cent of CIOs) perceived to be caused by employees or third parties overhearing sensitive information. The second biggest threat (37 per cent) is seen as visual security or employees or third parties viewing sensitive information.

Despite this trend, just 25 per cent of companies plan to enhance employee training in IT security issues and only 7 per cent will introduce more stringent vetting of firms that have access to their data.

As a result, the measures businesses are taking to protect companies’, customers’ or employees’ personal information span a wide range from anti-virus software (72 per cent), password generator or management systems (48 per cent), network security systems such as firewalls (44 per cent), multi-factor authentication services (38 per cent) and hard drive encryption (31 per cent).